95-2031.ZO Opinion

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NOTICE: This opinion is subject to formal revision before publication in the
preliminary print of the United States Reports. Readers are requested to
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SUPREME COURT OF THE UNITED STATES
--------
No. 95-2031
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THOMAS YOUNG, et al., APPELLANTS v.
KIRK FORDICE et al.
on appeal from the united states district court
for the southern district of mississippi
[March 31, 1997]

Justice Breyer delivered the opinion of the Court.
The question before us is whether 5 of the Voting
Rights Act of 1965, 79 Stat. 439, as amended, 42
U. S. C. 1973c (5), requires preclearance of certain
changes that Mississippi made in its voter registration
procedures-changes that Mississippi made in order to
comply with the National Voter Registration Act, 42
U. S. C. 1973gg et seq. We hold that 5 does require
preclearance.

I
A
The National Voter Registration Act
In 1993, Congress enacted the National Voter Regis-
tration Act of 1993, 107 Stat. 77, 42 U. S. C. 1973gg et
seq. (NVRA), to take effect for States like Mississippi on
January 1, 1995. The NVRA requires States to provide
simplified systems for registering to vote in federal
elections, i.e., elections for federal officials, such as the
President, congressional Representatives, and United
States Senators. The States must provide a system for
voter registration by mail, 1973gg-4, a system for voter
registration at various state offices (including those that
provide -public assistance- and those that provide
services to people with disabilities), 1973gg-5, and,
particularly important, a system for voter registration on
a driver's license application. 1973gg-3. The NVRA
specifies various details about how these systems must
work, including, for example, the type of information
that States can require on a voter registration form.
1973gg-3(c)(2), 1973gg-7(b). It also imposes require-
ments about just when, and how, States may remove
people from the federal voter rolls. 1973gg-6(a)(3)-(4).
The NVRA adds that it does not -supersede, restrict or
limit the application of the Voting Rights Act of 1965,-
and that it does not -authoriz[e] or requir[e] conduct
that is prohibited by the Voting Rights Act of 1965.-
1973gg-9(d).

The Voting Rights Act
Section 5 of the Voting Rights Act of 1965 (VRA),
among other things, prohibits a State with a specified
history of voting discrimination, such as Mississippi,
from -enact[ing] or seek[ing] to administer any . . .
practice, or procedure with respect to voting different
from that in force or effect on November 1, 1964,- unless
and until the State obtains preclearance from the United
States Attorney General (Attorney General) or the
United States District Court for the District of Colum-
bia. 1973c. Preclearance is, in effect, a determination
that the change -does not have the purpose and will not
have the effect of denying or abridging the right to vote
on account of race or color.- Ibid. In the language of
5 jurisprudence, this determination involves a determi-
nation that the change is not retrogressive. Beer v.
United States, 425 U. S. 130, 141 (1976); 28 CFR
51.54(a) (1996).

B
The case before us concerns three different Mississippi
voting registration systems: The first system, which we
shall call the -Old System,- is that used by Mississippi
before it tried to comply with the NVRA. The second
system, the -Provisional Plan,- is a system aimed at
NVRA compliance, which Mississippi tried to implement
for about six weeks between January 1, 1995, and
February 10, 1995. The third system, the -New Sys-
tem,- is the system that Mississippi put into place after
February 10, 1995, in a further effort to comply with the
NVRA. We shall briefly explain the relevant features of
each system.
The Old System. Before 1995, Mississippi adminis-
tered a voting registration system, which, like the
systems of most States, provided for a single registration
that allowed the registrant to vote in both federal
elections and state elections (i.e., elections for state and
local offices). Under Mississippi law, a citizen could
register to vote either by appearing personally at a
county or municipal clerk's office or at other locations
(such as polling places) that the clerk or his deputy
visited to register people to vote. Miss. Code Ann.
23-15-35, 23-15-37, 23-15-39(6) (1990). Mississippi
citizens could also register by obtaining a mail-in
registration form available at driver's license agencies,
public schools, and public libraries, among other places,
and mailing it back to the clerk. 23-15-47(2)(a) (Supp.
1996). The law set forth various details, requiring, for
example, that a mail-in application contain the name
and address of the voter and that it be attested to by a
witness, ibid., (although there is some dispute between
the parties about whether an application could be
rejected for failing to have the witness's signature).
State law also allowed county registration officials to
purge voters from the rolls if they had not voted in four
years. 23-15-159 (1990).
The Provisional Plan. In late 1994, the Mississippi
secretary of state, with the help of an NVRA implemen-
tation committee, prepared a series of voter registration
changes designed to ensure compliance with the NVRA.
The new voter registration application that was incorpo-
rated into the driver's license form, for example, did not
require that the registrant repeat his or her address, nor
did it require an attesting witness. The Secretary of
State provided information and instructions about those
changes to voter registration officials and state agency
personnel throughout the State. The secretary of state
and the implementing committee assumed-and recom-
mended-that the Mississippi Legislature would change
state law insofar as that law might prevent a valid
registration under the NVRA's provisions from counting
as a valid registration for a state or local election. And,
on that assumption, at least one official in the secretary
of state's office told state election officials to place the
name of any new valid applicant under the NVRA on a
list that would permit him or her to vote in state, as
well as in federal, elections.
Using this Provisional Plan, at least some Mississippi
officials registered as many as 4,000 voters between
January 1, 1995, and February 10, 1995. On January
25, however, the state legislature tabled a bill that
would have made NVRA registrations valid for all
elections in Mississippi (by, for example, allowing
applicants at driver's license and other agencies to
register on the spot, without having to mail in the
application themselves, App. 86, by eliminating the
attesting witness signature on the mail-in application,
compare id., at 96, 101, with Miss. Code Ann. 23-15-
47(3) (Supp. 1996), and by eliminating the optional
4-year purge of non-voting registrants, replacing it with
other methods for maintaining up-to-date voter rolls,
App. 87-92, 103.) Because of the legislature's failure to
change the Old System's requirements for state election
registration, the state attorney general concluded that
Provisional Plan registrations that did not meet Old
System requirements would not work, under state law,
as registration for state elections. State officials notified
voter registration officials throughout the State; and
they, in turn, were asked to help notify the 4,000
registrants that they were not registered to vote in state
or local elections.
The New System. On February 10, 1995, Mississippi
began to use what we shall call the New System. That
system consists of the changes that its Provisional Plan
set forth-but as applied only to registration for federal
elections. Mississippi maintains the Old System as the
only method for registration for state elections, and as
one set of methods to register for federal elections. See
App. to Juris. Statement 21a. All other States, we are
told, have modified their voter-registration rules so that
NVRA registration registers voters for both federal and
state elections. Brief for United States as Amicus
Curiae 4.

C
This case arises out of efforts by Mississippi to
preclear, under 5 of the VRA, changes that it made to
comply with the NVRA. In December 1994, Mississippi
submitted to the United States Attorney General a list
of NVRA-implementing changes that it then intended to
make. That submission essentially described what we
have called the Provisional Plan. The submission
contained numerous administrative changes described in
two booklets called The National Voter Registration Act,
App. 26-43, and the Mississippi Agency Voter Registra-
tion Procedures Manual, id., at 51-60. It also included
the proposed state legislation necessary to make the
Provisional Plan work for state elections as well. Id., at
86-104. Mississippi requested preclearance. Id., at
109-110. On February 1, 1995, the Department of Jus-
tice wrote to Mississippi that the Attorney General did
-not interpose any objection to the specified changes--
thereby preclearing Mississippi's submitted changes.
App. to Juris. Statement 17a.
As we pointed out above, however, on January 25,
about one week before the Attorney General precleared
the proposed changes, the state legislature had tabled
the proposed legislation needed to make those changes
effective for state elections. On February 10, 10 days
after the Department precleared the proposed changes,
Mississippi officials wrote to voter registration officials
around the State, telling them that it -appears unlikely
that the Legislature will- revive the tabled bill; that the
Provisional Plan's registration would therefore not work
for state elections; that they should write-or help the
Secretary of State write-to tell those who had regis-
tered under that system that they were not registered to
vote in state elections; that they should make certain
future registrants understand that they would need to
register separately to be eligible to vote in state, as well
as federal, elections; and that they should develop a
system for distinguishing between NVRA and other
voters. Id., at 20a-23a.
On February 16, about two weeks after the Depart-
ment of Justice sent its preclearance letter, the Depart-
ment of Justice wrote another letter to Mississippi,
which letter made clear that the Department did not
believe its earlier preclearance had precleared what it
now saw as a new plan. The Department asked the
State to submit what it called this new -dual voter
registration and purge system- for preclearance. Id., at
24a. The Department added:
-In this regard we note that, while, on February 1,
1995, the Attorney General granted Section 5
preclearance to procedures instituted by the state to
implement the NVRA, that submission did not seek
preclearance for a dual registration and purge
system and, indeed, we understand that the decision
to institute such a system was not made until after
February 1.- Id., at 24a-25a.
Mississippi, perhaps believing that the February 1
preclearance sufficed, made no further preclearance
submissions.

D
On April 20, 1995, four private citizens (appellants)
brought this lawsuit before a three-judge District Court.
They claimed that Mississippi and its officials had
implemented changes in its registration system without
preclearance in violation of 5. The United States,
which is an amicus curiae here, brought a similar
lawsuit, and the two actions were consolidated.
The three-judge District Court granted Mississippi's
motion for summary judgment. It considered the
plaintiffs' basic claim, namely that the differences
between the Provisional Plan and the New System
amounted to a change in the administration of Missis-
sippi's voting registration practice, which change had not
been precleared. The court rejected this argument on
the ground that the Provisional Plan was a misapplica-
tion of state law, never ratified by the State. Since the
differences between the New System and the Provisional
Plan were attributable to the State's attempt to correct
this misapplication of state law, the court held, those
differences were not changes subject to preclearance.
The court also considered a different question, namely,
whether the New System differed from the Old System;
and whether Mississippi had precleared all the changes
that the New System made in the Old. The court held
that the Department had (on February 1) precleared the
administrative changes needed to implement the NVRA.
The court also held that Mississippi did not need to
preclear its failure to pass a law that would have
permitted NVRA registration to count for state, as well
as for federal, elections, as the distinction between state
and federal elections was due to the NVRA's own pro-
visions, not to the State's changes in voting practices.
The private plaintiffs appealed, and we noted probable
jurisdiction. 519 U. S. ___, (1996). We now reverse.

II
Section 5 of the Voting Rights Act of 1965 requires
Mississippi to preclear -any . . . practice or procedure
with respect to voting different from that in force or
effect on November 1, 1964.- 42 U. S. C. 1973c. The
statute's date of November 1, 1964, often, as here, is not
directly relevant, for differences once precleared normally
need not be cleared again. They become part of the
baseline standard for purposes of determining whether
a State has -enact[ed]- or is -seek[ing] to administer- a
-practice or procedure- that is -different- enough itself
to require preclearance. Presley v. Etowah County
Comm'n, 502 U. S. 491, 495 (1992) (-To determine
whether there have been changes with respect to voting,
we must compare the challenged practices with those in
existence before they were adopted. Absent relevant
intervening changes, the Act requires us to use practices
in existence on November 1, 1964, as our standard of
comparison-). Regardless, none of the parties asks us to
look further back in time than 1994, when the Old
System was last in effect. The appellants ask us to
consider whether Mississippi's New System amounts to
a forbidden effort to implement unprecleared changes
either because (a) the New System is -different from-
the post-1994 Provisional Plan or (b) because it is
-different from- the 1994 Old System. We shall consider
each of these claims in turn.

A
First, the appellants and the Government argue that
the Provisional Plan, because it was precleared by the
Attorney General, became part of the baseline against
which to judge whether a future change must be pre-
cleared. They add that the New System differs signifi-
cantly from the Provisional System, particularly in its
effect on registration for state elections. They conclude
that Mississippi had to preclear the New System insofar
as it differed from the Provisional Plan.
The District Court rejected this argument on the
ground that the Provisional Plan practices and proce-
dures never became part of Mississippi's voting-related
practices or procedures, but instead simply amounted to
a temporary misapplication of state law. We too believe
that the Provisional Plan, in the statute's words, was
never -in force or effect.- 42 U. S. C. 1973c.
The District Court rested its conclusion upon the fact
that Mississippi did not change its state law so as to
make the Provisional Plan's -unitary- registration system
lawful and that neither the Governor nor the legislature
nor the state attorney general ratified the Provisional
Plan. The appellants argue that the simple fact that a
voting practice is unlawful under state law does not
show, entirely by itself, that the practice was never -in
force or effect.- We agree. A State, after all, might
maintain in effect for many years a plan that techni-
cally, or in one respect or another, violated some
provision of state law. Cf. Perkins v. Matthews, 400
U. S. 379, 394-395 (1971) (deeming ward system -in fact
`in force or effect'- and requiring change from wards to
at-large elections to be precleared even though ward
system was illegal and at-large elections were required
under state law) (emphasis in original); City of Lockhart
v. United States, 460 U. S. 125, 132-133 (1983) (num-
bered-post election system was -in effect- although it
may have been unauthorized by state law). But that is
not the situation here.
In this case, those seeking to administer the Provi-
sional Plan did not intend to administer an unlawful
plan. They expected it to become lawful. They aban-
doned the Plan as soon as its unlawfulness became
apparent, i.e., as soon as it became clear that the
legislature would not pass the laws needed to make it
lawful. Moreover, all these events took place within the
space of a few weeks. The plan was used to register
voters for only 41 days, and only about a third of the
State's voter registration officials had begun to use it.
Further, the State held no elections prior to its abandon-
ment of the Provisional Plan, nor were any elections
imminent. These circumstances taken together lead us
to conclude that the Provisional Plan was not -in force
or effect-; hence it did not become part of the baseline
against which we are to judge whether future change
occurred.

B
We nonetheless agree with the appellants and the
Government that the New System included changes that
must be, but have not been, precleared. That is because
the New System contains -practices and procedures- that
are significantly -different from- the Old System-the
system that was in effect in 1994. And the State has
not precleared those differences.
This Court has made clear that minor changes, as well
as major, require preclearance. Allen v. State Bd. of
Elections, 393 U. S. 544, 566-569 (1969) (discussing
minor changes, including a change from paper ballots to
voting machines); NAACP v. Hampton County Election
Comm'n, 470 U. S. 166, 175-177 (1985) (election date
relative to filing deadline); Perkins, supra, at 387
(location of polling places). See also 28 CFR 51.12
(1996) (requiring preclearance of -[a]ny change affecting
voting, even though it appears to be minor or indirect
. . .-). This is true even where, as here, the changes are
made in an effort to comply with federal law, so long as
those changes reflect policy choices made by state or
local officials. Allen, supra, at 565, n. 29 (requiring
State to preclear changes made in an effort to comply
with 2 of the VRA, 42 U. S. C. 1973); McDaniel v.
Sanchez, 452 U. S. 130, 153 (1981) (requiring preclear-
ance of voting changes submitted to a federal court
because the VRA -requires that whenever a covered
jurisdiction submits a proposal reflecting the policy
choices of the elected representatives of the people-no
matter what constraints have limited the choices
available to them-the preclearance requirement of the
Voting Rights Act is applicable-); Lopez v. Monterey
County, 519 U. S. ___ (1996) (slip op., at 13) (quoting
McDaniel and emphasizing the need to preclear changes
reflecting policy choices); Hampton County Election
Comm'n, supra, at 179-180 (requiring preclearance of
change in election date although change was made in an
effort to comply with 5). Moreover, the NVRA does not
forbid application of the VRA's requirements. To the
contrary, it says -[n]othing in this subchapter authorizes
or requires conduct that is prohibited by the- VRA. 42
U. S. C. 1973gg-9(d)(2). And it adds that -neither the
rights and remedies established by this section nor any
other provision of this subchapter shall supersede,
restrict, or limit the application of the- VRA. 1973gg-
9(d)(1).
Nor does it matter for the preclearance requirement
whether the change works in favor of, works against, or
is neutral in its impact upon the ability of minorities to
vote. See generally City of Lockhart v. United States,
supra (requiring preclearance of a change but finding
the change nonretrogressive). It is change that invokes
the preclearance process; evaluation of that change
concerns the merits of whether the change should in fact
be precleared. See Lopez, supra, at ___ (slip op., at
12-15); Allen, supra, at 555, n. 19, 558-559. That is so
because preclearance is a process aimed at preserving
the status quo until the Attorney General or the courts
have an opportunity to evaluate a proposed change. See
McCain v. Lybrand, 465 U. S. 236, 243-244 (1984)
(Without 5, even successful antidiscrimination lawsuits
might -merely resul[t] in a change in methods of
discrimination-); South Carolina v. Katzenbach, 383
U. S. 301, 335 (1966) (same); id., at 328 (explaining how
the VRA could attack the problems of States going from
one discriminatory system to another, by shifting -the
advantage of time and inertia- to the potential victims
of that discrimination).
In this case, the New System contains numerous
examples of new, significantly different administrative
practices-practices that are not purely ministerial, but
reflect the exercise of policy choice and discretion by
Mississippi officials. The system, for example, involves
newly revised written materials containing significant,
and significantly different, registration instructions; new
reporting requirements for local elections officials; new
and detailed instructions about what kind of assistance
state agency personnel should offer potential NVRA
registrants, which state agencies will be NVRA registra-
tion agencies, how and in what form registration
material is to be forwarded to those who maintain the
voting rolls; and other similar matters. Insofar as they
embody discretionary decisions that have a potential for
discriminatory impact, they are appropriate matters for
review under 5's preclearance process.
In saying this, we recognize that the NVRA imposes
certain mandates on states, describing those mandates
in detail. The NVRA says, for example, that the state
driver's license applications must also serve as voter
registration applications and that a decision not to
register will remain confidential. 42 U. S. C. 1973gg-
3(a)(1), (c)(2)(D)(ii). It says that States cannot force
drivers' license applications to submit the same informa-
tion twice (on license applications and again on registra-
tion forms). 1973gg-3(c)(2)(A). Nonetheless, implemen-
tation of the NVRA is not purely ministerial. The
NVRA still leaves room for policy choice. The NVRA
does not list, for example, all the other information the
State may-or may not-provide or request. And a deci-
sion about that other information-say, whether or not
to tell the applicant that registration counts only for
federal elections-makes Mississippi's changes to the
New System the kind of discretionary, nonministerial
changes that call for federal VRA review. Hence,
Mississippi must preclear those changes.

C
We shall consider Mississippi's two important argu-
ments to the contrary.

1
The first set of arguments concerns the effect of the
Attorney General's preclearance letter. Mississippi
points out that the Department of Justice wrote to the
State on February 1, 1995, that the Attorney General
did -not interpose any objection- to its NVRA changes.
App. to Juris. Statement 17a. Hence, says Mississippi,
the Attorney General has already precleared its efforts
to comply.
The submission that the Attorney General approved,
however, assumed that Mississippi's administrative
changes would permit NVRA registrants to vote in both
state and federal elections. The submission included a
pamphlet entitled The National Voter Registration Act,
App. 26-43, which set forth what Mississippi's submis-
sion letter called the State's -plan to administratively
implement NVRA on January 1, 1995.- Id., at 110.
The submission included legislative changes; indeed,
Mississippi enclosed in the packet the proposed legisla-
tion that would have made a single NVRA registration
valid for both federal and state elections. Id., at
86-104. The submission also included forms to be
provided NVRA registrants, forms that, by their lack of
specificity, probably would have led those voters-and
the Attorney General-to believe that NVRA registration
permitted them to vote in all elections. Id., at 44-50.
These forms-perfectly understandable on the -single
registration- assumption-might well mislead if they
cannot in fact be used to register for state elections. Cf.
City of Lockhart v. United States, 460 U. S., at 131-132
(requiring city to submit -entire system- because -[t]he
possible discriminatory purpose or effect of the [changes],
admittedly subject to 5, cannot be determined in iso-
lation from the `preexisting' elements . . .-). Further-
more, the submission included no instructions to voter
registration officials about treating NVRA registrants
differently from other voters and provided for no notice
to NVRA registrants that they could not vote in state
elections.
Mississippi replies that, as a matter of logic, one could
read its submission, with its explicit indication that the
state legislation was proposed, but not yet enacted, as a
request for approval of the administrative changes
whether or not the state legislature passed the bill. It
tries to derive further support for its claim by pointing
to Department of Justice regulations that say that the
Attorney General will not preclear unenacted legislation.
28 CFR 51.22, 51.35 (1996). As a matter of pure
logic, Mississippi is correct. One could logically under-
stand the preclearance in the way the State suggests.
But still, that is not the only way to understand it.
At a minimum, its submission was ambiguous as to
whether (1) it sought approval on the assumption that
the state legislature would enact the bill, or (2) it
sought approval whether or not the state legislature
would enact the bill. Although there is one reference to
the possibility of a -dual registration system- in the
absence of legislation, App. 72, the submission simply
did not specify what would happen if the legislature did
not pass the bill, and it thereby created ambiguity about
whether the practices and procedures described in the
submission would be implemented regardless of what the
legislature did. The VRA permits the Attorney General
to resolve such ambiguities against the submitting State.
McCain, 465 U. S., at 249, 255-257 (burden is on the
State to submit a complete and unambiguous description
of proposed changes); Clark v. Roemer, 500 U. S. 646,
658-659 (1991) (relying on -presumption that any ambi-
guity in the scope of the preclearance request must be
construed against the state-) (internal quotation marks
and citations omitted). See also 28 CFR 51.26(d),
51.27(c) (1996) (requiring preclearance submissions to
explain changes clearly and in detail). Hence the
Attorney General could read her approval of the submit-
ted plan as an approval of a plan that rested on the
assumption that the proposed changes would be valid for
all elections, not a plan in which NVRA registration
does not qualify the registrant to vote in state elections.
We find nothing in the Attorney General's regulations
that forces a contrary conclusion.
Mississippi adds that the Attorney General-if faced
with an ambiguity-could have sought more information
to clarify the situation, to determine what would happen
if the legislature failed to pass the bill, for example.
And the Attorney General could then have withheld her
approval once she found out what would likely occur.
Again, Mississippi is right as to what the Attorney
General might have done. See 51.37(a) (Attorney
General may request more information about submis-
sions.) Indeed, the Solicitor General -acknowledge[s]-
that with -the benefit of hindsight, . . . such a request
might have been preferable- to preclearing the submis-
sion. Brief for United States as Amicus Curiae 27 n. 14.
Still, the law does not require the Attorney General, in
these circumstances, to obtain more information. Clark,
supra, at 658-659 (The Attorney General is under no
duty to investigate voting changes). See also McCain,
supra, at 247 (Congress -`acknowledged and anticipated
[the] inability of the Justice Department-given limited
resources-to investigate independently all changes
. . .'-), quoting Perkins, 400 U. S., at 392, n. 10. And
the issue, of course, is not whether she should or should
not have issued a preclearance letter on February 1,
1995, but rather what it was that she precleared. Her
failure to seek added information makes it more likely,
not less likely, that she intended to preclear what she
took to be the natural import of the earlier submission,
namely a proposal for a single state/federal registration
system.
Finally, Mississippi argues that the Attorney General
in fact knew, on February 1, 1995, when she issued the
preclearance letter, that the state legislature would not
enact the proposed bill. And it adds that the Attorney
General nonetheless approved the submission in order to
have in place a precleared unitary system that would
serve as a benchmark for measuring whether subsequent
changes are retrogressive, thereby permitting the
Attorney General to argue that 5 prohibited as retro-
gressive the dual system which she knew would likely
emerge because the legislation failed. In fact, the record
is not clear about just what the Department of Justice
did or did not know (e.g., whether tabling the bill meant
killing it; whether state election law definitely had to be
changed). But in any event, the short answer to the
argument is that Mississippi's description of the Depart-
ment's motive, if true, would refute its claim that the
Attorney General intended to preclear a dual system.
Indeed, only two weeks after the February 1 preclear-
ance, the Attorney General wrote to Mississippi stating
explicitly her view that its submission had not sought
-preclearance for a dual registration and purge system.-
App. to Juris. Statement 25a. See McCain, supra, at
255 (relying on -such after-the-fact Justice Department
statements . . . in determining whether a particular
change was actually precleared . . .-).
Regardless, the law ordinarily permits the Attorney
General to rest a decision to preclear or not to preclear
upon the submission itself. Clark, supra, at 658-659;
United States v. Sheffield Bd. of Comm'rs, 435 U. S.
110, 136-138 (1978). Tying preclearance to a particular
set of written documents themselves helps to avoid the
kinds of arguments about meaning and intent that
Mississippi raises here-arguments that, were they
frequently to arise, could delay expeditious decision-
making as to the many thousands of requests for
clearance that the Department of Justice receives each
year. See Clark, supra, at 658-659. In sum, we
conclude that the Department of Justice, on February 1,
did not preclear the New System.

2
Finally, Mississippi argues that the NVRA, because it
specifically applies only to registration for federal
elections, 42 U. S. C. 1973gg-2(a), automatically
authorizes it to maintain separate voting procedures;
hence 5 cannot be used to force it to implement the
NVRA for all elections. If Mississippi means that the
NVRA does not forbid two systems and that 5 of the
VRA does not categorically-without more-forbid a
State to maintain a dual system, we agree. The deci-
sion to adopt the NVRA federal registration system is
not, by itself, a change for the purposes of 5, for the
State has no choice but to do so. And of course, a
State's retention of a prior system for state elections,
by itself, is not a change. It is the discretionary
elements of the new federal system that the State must
preclear. The problem for Mississippi is that preclear-
ance typically requires examination of discretionary
changes in context-a context that includes history,
purpose, and practical effect. See City of Lockhart v.
United States, 460 U. S., at 131 (-The possible discrimi-
natory purpose or effect of the [changes], admittedly
subject to 5, cannot be determined in isolation from the
`preexisting' elements of the council-). The appellants
and the government argue that in context and in light
of their practical effects, the particular changes and the
way in which Mississippi administers them could have
the -purpose [or] . . . effect of denying or abridging the
right to vote on account of race or color . . . .- 42
U. S. C. 1973c. We cannot say whether or not that is
so, for that is an argument about the merits. The
question here is -preclearance,- and preclearance is
necessary so that the appellants and the Government
will have the opportunity to find out if it is true.

III
We hold that Mississippi has not precleared, and must
preclear, the -practices and procedures- that it sought to
administer on and after February 10, 1995. The deci-
sion of the District Court is reversed and the case
remanded with instructions for the District Court to
enter an order enjoining further use of Mississippi's
unprecleared changes as appropriate. Any further
questions about the remedy for Mississippi's use of an
unprecleared plan are for the District Court to address
in the first instance. Clark, U. S., at 659-660.

It is so ordered.